Take This Longing
by quotient
Summary: How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel? Sam Winchester, Scarecrow.


**Author's Note**: One of the most interesting things about Sam and Dean is that (and I don't know if this was intentional) they fall so realistically into a slowly disintegrating family dynamic. Each of the characters, whom I like equally, care strongly for each other, but exist in such different head space that they don't really understand the other's perspective. They try, but continuously they say stupidly selfish comments. Dean, in Shadows, states he thought that everything would just go back to how they were, and that Sam should not be leaving again (not in so many words.) As for Sam, well, in Scarecrow, he says something that struck me as so completely coldhearted it continues to shock me when I re-watch the episode. And that's what this story is based on. Hopefully you all enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue

**Take This Longing**

_How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?_

**4**

"I don't know. What do I look like, an expert?"

"I just thought, you having kids and all…"

"Yeah, well, you were wrong. I mean for chrissakes, the kid doesn't talk, doesn't want to play, doesn't do anything. It's not natural."

"Well, can you blame him? His mother just died, and his dad…They should probably remove the kids. The man's become obsessive."

"Don't I know it. It doesn't really concern us though. He's not beating the boy or anything. Dean will just have to come around soon. I mean it's been several months. He should be getting over it. I don't have time to deal with this."

Dean stood in the doorway watching the two adults. He was waiting for his Daddy to pick him up, but it was too cold to wait outside. Instead he had decided to wait inside. Now, he wished he'd waited outside.

A tear falling down his cheek, Dean ran away into the icy wind.

**8**

Mark was waiting for him in the playground. Dean was prepared. He knew he could take the larger boy if he tried anything.

Trying to ignore the other's stare, Dean trudged over to the swings. He loved swinging. It was liberating. He thought when he was older he'd become a pilot or something so he could watch the world moving underneath him like it did when he pumped his legs and flew upwards.

Then a hand grabbed the chain, and the swing was jerked from him, dumping him unceremoniously to the ground.

"Hey!" He turned indignantly to face the grinning Mark.

"What's the matter, Dean? Got a problem?"

Dean clenched his teeth together. Even at this young age, it was obvious to everybody that he would have one hell of a tongue on him. Right now, Dean tried to remember the firm words of his father.

_Whatever you do, Deano, don't lose your cool. Once you lose that, they've got you._

Taking a deep breath, Dean turned slowly away, just wanting to get out of there before he got in trouble. The last thing he needed was getting sent to the principle's office. He was already in a lot of trouble for not doing his homework. Dad was starting to threaten severe punishment if he didn't start improving.

He was almost in complete control of himself when Mark, realizing he wasn't going to get Dean to rise to the bait by stealing the swing, called out, "Going to go and cry to your Mommy? Oh, right, you can't, she's dead." Dean whirled, and Mark grinned. "She's probably happy too. Probably wanted to get away from her pussy of a son."

Mark got what he wanted. Dean saw red. Later, when his father was driving him home, John asked:

"Why did you beat up that boy, Dean? What really happened?"

Dean simply told him what he'd told the principle before he'd been suspended.

"I just didn't like him."

**10**

Janelle held the shoe box close to her chest, tears in her eyes. Dean and Jonathan stood next to her, not quite sure what to do.

"He's dead. Thomas is dead."

Dean leaned over, looking at the still form of the frog. He felt a small stirring in his gut.

"He's dead."

Jonathan reached out and put his arm around his younger sister's shoulders and held her close. "It's okay, Janelle."

Now the tears were falling down her cheeks, and her breath was hitching. "No it's not. He's dead."

"He's gone to a better place." Jonathan said quickly, trying to quiet his sister's crying. "To frog heaven."

Dean looked up sharply at Jonathan. He watched as the older boy allowed his younger sister to grab hold of him and cry into his shoulder. They stayed like that for a long time, Dean standing to the side, watching, before slipping away.

On his way home, all Dean could think were the first word's his father said to him after the fire.

_Mommy's not coming back, Dean. She's dead._

**14**

Dean hated group projects. He simply wasn't very strong in the whole social skills department, and group projects were often beyond his abilities. He had no patience with the group and the group had no patience with him, and put it together with the fact that he had to do most of his work while out hunting…He hated group projects.

Now he sat at the dining room table of a kid named Carver, next to a girl named Cindy, with a large piece of Bristol board before them. They'd been working for an hour now, doing everything Carver and Cindy told him to do because they were best friends and didn't care about anything Dean had to say.

"Hey you guys." A voice came from the doorway. All three teens looked up at Carver's mother who held a tray with three glasses of lemonade and a plate of freshly baked cookies on it. "I thought you've all been working so hard, you needed a break."

"Hey, thanks." Cindy said, grinning.

Carver's mom laid the tray on the table once the teens had cleared a space for it. Immediately all three reached for their lemonade and cookies. Dean hesitated a moment, holding a cookie in his hands. He breathed in deeply, savouring the scent of something home-baked. His father often cooked meals, with Dean as stand-in cook, but neither of them had ever mastered baking. Vaguely, Dean could remember his mother smiling in the kitchen with a batch of something warm that had made Dean's mouth water when he was younger.

They shared the cookies, Carver and Cindy discussing something superficial. For the first time, Dean earnestly tried to join in the conversation. For about a half-hour Dean didn't feel on the outside looking in. Ghosts and goblins, ghouls and demons, were nothing more than stories told late at night. It was so calm and normal.

He left soon afterwards. In the hallway while putting on his coat, Carver's mom passed by him; she smiled at him and said,

"Pleased to meet you, Dean. You be careful on your way home."

He made it all the way to the small park near their current apartment before he burst into tears about possibilities.

**18**

"What about math? You're good at that."

"Dammit, Sam, do you mind? I'm trying to watch this."

"I'm just saying."

"Yeah, well, don't."

"Don't what? You're eighteen, you could go, leave."

"I'm not leaving you and Dad." Then, underneath his breath, "Besides I couldn't afford it anyway, even if I ever got accepted somewhere."

Sam heard it anyway. "Didn't they even bother setting up a college fund or anything?"

Great, now Sam was getting curious. "Does it matter? I'm not going."

"I can understand Dad not bothering with something like education now…"

"Sammy…"

"But back then? Why wouldn't they have set anything up?"

"Sam, I don't want to-"

"Didn't Mom have a degree?" It was said so softly that Dean wondered for a moment if he'd actually heard it.

"Yeah." He answered, turning off the television. "She did."

"So wouldn't she have wanted you to get a higher education?"

"I was four years old. Nobody thinks that far ahead," he lied.

Sam looked at him for a long moment. "You should ask Dad."

"I'm not asking Dad. Can't you just let it go? I don't want to go to college."

"I bet Mom would have wanted you to go."

"Yeah, well, she's not here now is she?"

**23**

It was nighttime, and Dean could feel in his bones that they would be leaving soon. He hugged Cassie closer to him, breathing in her scent. She snuggled against him, her body warm in the cool draft from the open window.

"I love you." He said.

She looked up at him, eyes wide in the dark. "I love you, too."

From the street he heard the faint beat of distant rap music. He grimaced slightly but then the beat faded and it was quiet once again. "You know, I have to wonder. Why did you even bother with me if you thought I was such a jerk?"

Cassie smiled. "It's because I know most of you bad ass types are nothing more than mamma's boys when it comes right down to it." She pushed herself up on her elbows to kiss his lips. "I can't wait to meet your mother one of these days. I bet her and I will have a lot in common."

They would be leaving soon, but he'd have to give her the truth. He loved her too much to do otherwise.

He kicked himself for it later, and didn't speak to his father for all of two weeks.

**25**

He lied to himself when he said he could go back there. He knew now that he'd never be able to do it, to face the cold granite embedded in the earth. So when his Dad asked him if he wanted to come, his voice pleading, Dean said he couldn't leave the hunt. He was too close.

John Winchester, just like every other year since November 1982, visited Mary Winchester's grave alone.

**26**

"I'm sorry." Mary Winchester told Sam

"For what?" Sam asked.

Dean already knew the answer.

_I'm sorry for the loss of your normal life_

_I'm sorry John forced you into this life_

_I'm sorry I wasn't there for you and you never got to know John before_

_I'm sorry I'm leaving again_

And Dean could smell the home baked cookies Carver's mother had made, heard her tell him to take care of himself.

Afterwards, when Sam had fallen into a deep sleep in their motel room far from Lawrence, Kansas and their old home, Dean locked himself in the bathroom and cried, because obviously, he didn't deserve the apology.

He'd had everything for awhile, and apparently, that was all he deserved.


End file.
